(AgapePress) - Southern Baptists in Tennessee are waging a last-minute battle to encourage voters to reject a state lottery.

Voters in Tennessee will decide the fate of a state lottery on Tuesday. Lottery proponents say legalized gambling will generate hundreds of millions of dollars for college scholarships for Tennessee residents. Estimates are that ticket sales could generate up to $900 million a year. Half of revenues reportedly would go to prizes, one-sixth to administrative costs and ticket vendors, and the remainder -- approximately $300 million - funding college scholarships, preschool programs, and school construction.

Opponents of the measure, many coming from a religious base, have purposely refrained from making it a "sin" issue, choosing instead to focus on it as a policy and economic matter, and pointing out that lotteries hurt children, the poor, and the economy, and do not do much to help education. Paul Durham, who is with the Tennessee Baptist Convention, says a lottery has many hidden costs.

"We know that from the records of other states that those who cannot afford to buy the tickets are the ones that buy most tickets," Durham says. "I don't want to make it appear that folks that are poor cannot make a decision, because they can."

Still, Durham says a lottery preys on low-income residents. "The record will show that seventy to ninety percent of all the sales for the lottery comes from those that are not able to buy or cannot afford [the tickets] or would be in the category of 'poor' people."

Durham adds that a lottery would open the door to other forms of legalized gambling. If the lottery measure passes, Tennessee would join 47 other states that have some form of legalized gambling. Hawaii and Utah would remain as the only two states that are gambling-free.

Polls show Tennessee voters are virtually split on the lottery issue.

© 2002 AgapePress all rights reserved.

E-mail this page to a friend

Printer-Friendly Version

Read all of our current headlines